A dominant Alastair Cook scored 189 and Ian Bell his first century against Australia as England took a commanding first innings lead of 208 at the close of play on the third day of the fifth Ashes Test yesterday.
England, who just need to draw the match to secure a first series win in Australia for 24 years having already retained the Ashes, were on 488-7, with Matt Prior (54) and Tim Bresnan (0) at the crease when bad light stopped play.
Cook put on another dazzling display of concentration and not a few fine shots and was given a rousing standing ovation by the 40,000 crowd after taking his series tally to 766 runs.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“It’s been an amazing five-six weeks for us as a side and for me personally,” Cook told reporters. “It’s great to be on the crest of a wave and enjoying it. We had a really good plan coming into this series, a good build up and we’ve played some good cricket, but we want to come home winning our series. That was our aim coming into this game and that’s what we’ll try to do with another two days left.”
Australia did not lack effort in the field, but their bowlers asked too few questions of the batsmen on a deadening track and their hopes of squaring the series were fading away in the early evening gloom.
“What Cook showed was a lot of discipline,” Australia stand-in captain Michael Clarke said. “He let a lot of balls go and played to his strengths.”
Those hopes were still high at the start of the day when the tourists resumed on 167-3 and Peter Siddle quickly picked up the wicket of nightwatchman Jimmy Anderson for 7.
At the other end, though, was the outstanding batsman of the series and Cook, who had started on 61, was soon accelerating toward his third century of the series.
By the time he was caught low in the gully by Mike Hussey off Shane Watson just after tea, England had overhauled Australia’s first innings tally of 280 and were 100 runs ahead with four wickets in hand.
Most of the crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground were clad in pink in honor of the breast cancer foundation started by former Test bowling great Glenn McGrath and his late wife Jane, but the England batsmen were in no mood for charity.
Bell picked up where Cook had let off and he finally scored his first Test century in 31 innings against Australia, but there were boos mixed with cheers as he doffed his helmet.
The 29-year-old had been given out caught behind on 67 when the ball went between bat and pad, but he stood his ground and was reprieved when the television review England demanded proved inconclusive.
Bell departed for 115 shortly before the end of the day after being caught by Clarke off the bowling of Mitchell Johnson.
“[It’s] the best knock that I’ve played in an England shirt against Australia,” Bell said.
Cook had few scares in his 488-minute innings and had stood his ground when he was on 99 and Australia’s Phillip Hughes claimed a catch at short-leg.
“It was very close and to be fair to Phil Hughes he said straight away: ‘I wasn’t sure,’” Cook said. “I obviously was going to hang around. On 99 you’re not going to walk off very quickly, you’re going to be dragged off.”
The umpires checked the TV pictures and concluded that the ball had not carried to Hughes and Cook went on to claim his 16th Test century with a single to midwicket shortly afterwards.
Debutant spinner Michael Beer, who had lost two potential wickets to TV reviews, finally got his maiden Test wicket when Paul Collingwood danced down the pitch, but sent the ball looping into the hands of Ben Hilfenhaus at mid-on for 13.
Despite England’s strong position, Clarke said he thought Australia could still win.
“If we can go out strong in the morning and get these last few wickets, then bat our backsides off and fight hard and get a lead of 180-200 on the final day at the SCG, I’m confident we can still win this game,” Clarke said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier